On July 13, 1957, the Board of Directors held an executive meeting and
initiated the dismissals of three Tech faculty members and the ended the Adult
Education program. Dismissed was Dr. Byron Robert Abernethy, professor of
Government for 16 years; Dr. Herbert Marvin Greenberg, assistant professor of
Psychology for two years and associate director of the Vocational
Rehabilitation Counseling Program; Dr. Per Stensland, professor of Education
and director of the Adult Education program for 5 years.

Both Abernethy and Greenberg had clashed with the Board of Directors
due to their political and social views. Abernethy had been active in "liberal"
Democratic circles while Greenberg had been vocal on his stance on
pro-integration, stating that the Supreme Court decision should be upheld and
he had conducted a psychological survey of faculty on their views of
integration.

A large part of the controversy was the secretive manner in which the
decisions were made. Tech President E. N. Jones was told the terminations were
discussed in the June meeting but he himself had been barred from attending
either the June or July board meetings and claimed to have no knowledge of
complaints against either professor. "I reiterate that dismissal from a college
faculty should be done with due process," stated Jones, who worried that Tech
might lose its accreditation due to such actions. Other requests for an open
meeting discussion of the dismissals were vetoed 8 to 1, with board member J.
Evetts Haley ironically being the one member to vote for a public discussion.
The board also declined to make public the reasons for the dismissals. Reasons
later pieced together point to Abernethy's consultant work income, two student
petitions requesting Greenberg's firing and letters of complaint about
Abernethy and Greenberg. Stensland, on the other hand, lost his job when Adult
Education program was terminated due to financial issues and no complaints seem
to have been involved with his ousting.

The loss of academic freedom and censorship forced several faculty
members to be unwilling to discuss the situation. Later, the Board of
Directors, in response to all the complaints including those of the Faculty
Advisory Committee, approved the creation of a committee to consider issues
involved with faculty tenure and outside activities.

In an approximately 8,000 word report published as a special
supplement to the March edition of the AAUP Bulletin, the American Association
of University Professors membership cast a unanimous vote of censure against
Texas Technological College on April 25, 1958.

The collection deals with the dismissal of three Texas Tech faculty
members and the resulting fallout among the faculty, administration, community
and the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). A majority of the
correspondence is between Tech administration, Board of Regents members and the
AAUP concerning the AAUP's citation of censure against Texas Tech.

Conservation Note: Most of the newsclippings were pasted down onto
paper with rubber cement and were thus yellowed and deteriorating, often torn
or crumbling as well. All were photocopied for preservation purposes.